Subject: Genetically Engineered Resurrection
Date: June 2, 2008
From: Flash Light
To: Chicschiss@aol.com

Dr. Schissel:

Thank you for your prompt response. I will reply point by point.

You wrote, "I don't think cloning a human, atheist or not, dead or not, can prove anything."

If we were to attempt to genetically resurrect say, Einstein or Shakespeare, I believe the hypothesis could easily be disproved. For example, if the resurrected Einstein showed no interest in, or aptitude for science, one could conclude the resurrection was not successful. Similarly, if the resurrected Shakespeare had no interest in writing, or was critically judged to have a "tin ear" for drama, one could conclude the resurrection was not successful. Because it's disprovable, it's a meaningful proposition. (Here I side with Karl Popper's variation on Logical Positivism: disproveability is the criteria of meaningfulness )

On the other hand, if the clones had success in their respective fields, it would at least remain an open question if the resurrection were successful. If it remains an open question, more people might become interested in trying genetic resurrection, and if enough people eventually believe it's worthwhile, then science will have found an alternative to Pascal's wager.

You wrote, "when my clone reached maturity he would be entirely different from me." I am different from the person I was 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and I expect I would be different from the person I will be 10 years from now. My experiences, learning, knowledge, memories, operating systems, etc. have, or will have changed. Never-the-less, there are enough similarities that one can say all of those are me. I suggest the greatest similarity between all those versions of "me" is that we share the same DNA. Certainly your clone would be different than the person you are now, just as you are different from the person you were 80 years ago, but the question remains whether friends and relatives might see enough similarities to conclude, "We got Chic back."

You wrote, "Identical twins reared apart have been found at maturity to share some similarities but to be very different in many ways." I submit that the relationship between identical twins, vis. the relationship between a human and his/her genetically resurrected clone is vastly different. In answering the fundamental question, "Why am I here?" The twins will think of their parents who deliberately or accidentally conceived them. Whereas the clone will think, I'm here because this body I once occupied died, and that DNA has been brought back to life. The clone, in seeking to understand her/his identity will have an entirely different relationship to the DNA, and the spirit which formerly occupied it, than a twin would.

You wrote, "Even if duplicating the raw material is possible, duplicating the finished product is unlikely." Duplicating the finished product is not the goal. Resurrecting the body and spirit is the aim, and it is to be expected the resulting resurrectee will be as different from the final version of the original as we are from our youth.

I believe the idea you are responding to was first popularized by a movie titled, "The Boys from Brazil." The plot involved a Nazi scheme to gentically reproduce Hitler. What I have in mind is quite different. Not to reproduce the result, but to resurrect the potential. To grant freedom to live again. To recover from death with nothing worse than amesia. The clone is in recovery. There is no attempt to program it to some Nazi inspired predetermined outcome. Rather to offer the possibility of aquiring lost memories.

If one were helping an amesiac recover memories, one would not insist s/he become identical to the person s/he was before the trauma which caused amnesia. Today the recovering Einstein might be more interested in a career involving genetic engineering, and there's nothing wrong with that. (Although personally I suspect today Einstein's might seek to help science solve the muddle cosmology has gotten into.)

Resurrecting the body is a matter of genetic engineering, resurrecting your spirit I suggest, is a matter of art. Your spirit is captured in your words, for example as they appear in issues of Pique, or on the pantheists.org website where I record this correspondence. Your clone, reading those words, comes in contact with the spirit which previously animated its' body, and by reading those words, gains the opportunity to restore that spirit to itself by learning those words

If one were to suffer amnesia, it would be natural to want to know what one had forgotten. Similarly, I believe the clone would feel compelled to relearn as much as it could of what it forgot upon its DNA's prior death, much as it would if it were a body recovering from amnesia due to a cause less severe than death.

You wrote, "If I were cloned (and I wouldn't mind)" Were you willing to risk your "immortal soul" by attempting to return to life by having your DNA cloned, I believe you could change the world's scientific / religious debate as we know it.

Simply by subjecting the metaphysical question of resurrection to a test, what ever the answer turns out to be, I believe you will make history. If you agree to an attempt to resurrect your DNA using genetic engineering with the stated purpose of winning.Pascal's wager, I believe you will win that wager and alter the dialog of metaphysics in favor of science for the next millennium.

Sincerely,

Flash